She has a point and, genius that she is, I’m sure she already knows it.
“So are you going to tell us now?” Rosie asks. She’s looking up at me with those huge blue eyes. It’s like she’s asking me to tuck her into bed, tell her a story. “Grace, what happened last night?”
I’m looking at the three of them. They really are here. And they really aren’t going anywhere.
I could think of a dozen reasons to send them away — a hundred. It isn’t safe. It isn’t their fight. Their parents could lose their jobs if someone were to catch us. The reasons are bubbling up on my tongue. But I can’t bring myself to say them.
Instead I blurt, “I followed the Scarred Man.”
I wait for someone to object, but no one says a thing.
“You know when he disappeared the other day?” I ask Rosie. “Well, I figured out that he must have come down here. Into the tunnels.”
“Of course!” Rosie sounds so mad at herself. “I’ve only ever come in through the public entrances where they give tours and stuff. I never knew there were hidden entrances. I should have guessed. I’m sorry, Grace.”
“Don’t be,” I tell her. “So … yesterday. I was following him again when he came down here. We walked for a long time and then he went up into some building.”
“What building?” Megan asks.
“I don’t know. That’s what I’ve been doing all day — trying to retrace our steps. But I can’t find it.”
“Why do you need to find it?” Noah asks. “What did you see?”
“I followed him inside. He was meeting someone. I couldn’t tell who, but they were talking about killing someone. He said — and I quote — ‘There are many perfectly adequate ways to die.’ And he just has to find one.”
For a moment there is nothing in the basement but the echo of the Scarred Man’s words and the drip, drip, drip of the water into the pool. It’s like sand through an hourglass, a steady, constant reminder that I’m running out of time.
“And you don’t know what building you were in?” Megan asks.
“No,” I snap in frustration.
“What did it look like?” she asks.
“Like a building! Carpet. Doors. Lights.”
“Was it one of the embassies? Did you see any signs or books in any languages that you might have recognized?” Noah tries.
“I saw a door and a shadow and the man who killed my mother telling someone he has another assignment!”
“But if we knew —” Megan starts.
“I don’t know who. I don’t know when. I just know that he is going to kill again.”
“No, he’s not,” Rosie says. She gives a wide, defiant grin.
“Yeah,” Noah says. “Because we’re going to stop him.”
It’s the right thing to say — the perfect line. They’re trying so hard to sound convincing, but I’m not convinced. I know too much. I have seen too much. I have lost too much.
And now I look at the three faces that stare back at me, praying I don’t have to lose anyone else.
When we leave that night, Rosie claims that she can walk on her hands all the way from Iran to Italy. Megan stays beside her, counting her steps, watching her tiny feet as they stay freakishly steady and straight in the air, but Noah and I walk up ahead. For a moment, we are alone.
“So,” I say, “I hear you’re a football stud.”
Noah laughs. “You would be confusing me with my father,” he says, then reconsiders. “Except, wait. No one has ever confused me with my father, so never mind.”
“Are you good?” I ask.
Noah shrugs. “I’m okay.”
“Lila says you’re good. And Lila doesn’t strike me as the type to overestimate your virtues.”
“Lila wants me to be good because that would mean I could stop being … me.”
“With you being defined as …”
“Man about town. Man of mystery. Man of many talents. Really a James Bond type with a bevy of beautiful women all eager to help me stop an international incident.”
“A bevy, huh?” I ask.
“Yeah,” Noah says. “I’m dangerous, is what I’m saying, Grace.” He gives me an oh-so-serious stare. “I have a license to kill.”
“Good to know,” I say. Noah laughs.
“Of course I usually kill through general incompetence and family disappointment.”
“I know the feeling,” I say, and then it hits me: the enormity of what I’m asking — of the risk we’re taking. “Why are you doing this, Noah?” I ask before I even know the words are coming.
Noah looks at me, stunned. “What do you mean? I’m your friend. Friends help each other when they are … you know … going up against international hit men and stuff.”
“Maybe that’s a bad idea. Maybe you don’t want to be my friend,” I tell him, but Noah just smirks.
“Too late. Besides, I know you’d never leave me alone if I was going to do something stupid.”
“Maybe I would.”
“And you’d never lie to me.” He runs a hand through his black hair, pushing it back, making it even spikier than usual. “That’s why my parents broke up. Maybe it’s because of their jobs or whatever, but they always had to keep things from each other. There were so many secrets and lies. You have no idea how much I hate it when people lie to me.”
I should tell him, I think. I should tell him about what I saw the night Mom died and what came after. About the Scarred Man and the Scarred Men. I should tell him not to trust me, not to like me, not to believe a word I say because there are moments late at night when I can’t even believe myself.
But I can’t say any of those things. I can’t bring myself to drive Noah away even though I know in my gut I probably should.
The marines are watching the street when we reach the US gates. I can see the light burning in my grandfather’s office. If he knows I’ve been gone all day, I doubt he cares. “Well, good night, Noah.”
“Good night, Grace.”
He starts toward Israel, then stops and calls, “Hey, Grace …”
“Yeah?”
His hands are in his pockets and the moonlight shines across his face. “Between you and me, I’m not as good as Lila says.”
“Okay.”
His smirk grows into an extremely cocky grin. “I’m better.”
He turns and leaves. I just smile after him, thinking, I totally knew it.